


Happier

by rewmariewrites



Series: Harry Potter Shorts [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, F/M, Future Neville Longbottom/Blaise Zabini, Indian Harry Potter, M/M, Neville Needs a Hug, Neville and Draco were trying their best, Neville is Really Sad, POV Neville Longbottom, Past Neville Longbottom/Draco Malfoy, Unhealthy Relationships, but they were just two teenage war veterans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-07-08 01:59:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15920604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rewmariewrites/pseuds/rewmariewrites
Summary: Neville was waiting for Ginny on the corner of 29th and Park when he saw them.





	Happier

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by Happier by Ed Sheeran - can you tell? ;)
> 
> I promise I'm still working on my other WIPs, this one just clawed its way out of me in one sitting today!
> 
> as always, if there is something not tagged that you feel should be, please let me know

      Neville was waiting for Ginny on the corner of 29th and Park when he saw them.

_       It’s only been a month _ , he thinks, heart sinking, as the love of his life walks by with Harry Potter’s arms slung over his shoulders and Harry Potter’s body draped across his back and Harry Potter’s scarf around his neck.

      They walk inside the bar across the street and Neville’s heart  _ aches _ because he is just able to catch the look on Draco’s face - the sheer  _ happiness _ of his expression, the flush high on his pale cheeks, the crinkling of his eyes as he smiles - as he looks over his shoulder and up to catch Harry’s eye. And then he  _ laughs _ at something Harry says, a laugh that was surprised out of him, so loud and boisterous that Neville can hear it clear across the busy London street.

      He’s smiling twice as wide as Neville has ever made him smile, and he can’t help but flinch as Harry leans down and their lips meet. He wonders if Harry is blushing underneath all that dark skin; Neville knows that  _ he  _ blushed every time he kissed Draco, out of excitement and nerves, because he never thought someone as beautiful as Draco would ever want him.

      He knows now that just because something is beautiful does not mean that it’s good for you, or that you are good for it. It  _ hurts _ , but he knows.

      He knows, because Draco looks  _ happy  _ in a way that he only ever rarely did when he and Neville were together. Neville watches him through the large windows of the pub, unable to tear his eyes away, as Draco sheds the thick layers that keep him warm ( _ he was always so cold, even in summer _ ) but keeps Harry’s scarf wound around his neck. Neville watches as they touch each other constantly, even as they move away from each other to take off gloves and hats and coats. 

      Neville was never able to touch Draco casually like that, after the war, even though he tried. They were too messed up. Everything they did had this… this  _ gravity _ to it, like everything they did had to  _ matter _ and be  _ important _ because so many people they had known and loved had _ died _ and they didn’t  _ get _ to touch casually anymore so maybe the living shouldn’t touch casually either.

      In retrospect, maybe his first relationship with Draco happened too soon. Eighth year was  _ hard _ , and  _ definitely _ not the right time to start  _ any _ kind of relationship, what with all the anger and dissociating and nightmares and  _ screaming _ that everyone was going through to process their trauma. But maybe that’s why he and Draco - the two kids on the outskirts of everything, important enough to exist but forgettable enough to be left by the wayside - fell into each other like they needed each other to  _ breathe _ , and Neville had  _ never _ felt anything like that before.

      He hasn’t felt anything like that since. And oh,  _ Merlin _ , he’s tried basically everything to find that feeling again.

      He believed for a long time, after eighth year was done, after Draco left him and the castle and the country with nothing more than a ‘ _ we’re not healthy together, we need to heal before we can try anything for real _ ’, that Draco would come back to him someday. That he would heal and Neville would heal and eventually they’d find each other again and live their lives together forever like Neville had always dreamed. 

      And they did. Well, they tried. For a while. After Draco had done his time, had done his healing, and Neville thought he had done his too.

      This time, when Draco left him, just a month ago, he said ‘ _ you were too caught up in the dream of me to remember to take care of yourself, nevermind the me that’s right here in front of you _ ’.

      Neville had thought they were happy. 

      Maybe he just thought that Draco could  _ make _ him be happy. Happier.

      Really, seeing him like this, Neville can’t blame Draco for wanting to move on with someone new. He looks so  _ content _ , sitting there with Harry’s arm draped across the back of his chair, with Harry’s hand lightly brushing his shoulder. He looks captivated by whatever Harry and Hermione are arguing about, following Harry’s grand hand gestures with his eyes and, when those gestures become too animated, and Harry hugs Draco tight to his side even as he gestures wildly at ‘Mione with his other hand, Draco is laughing so hard he is almost  _ crying _ into Harry’s neck.

      “Babe? You ready to leave?” Ginny says, suddenly beside him. Her grin is warm and understanding, her eyes a little too bright. The wound from her breakup with Harry is still a little raw, but what is there to do when your boyfriend figures out he’s more gay than not? You let his love go and keep his friendship, and hope that he is happier.

      Neville wishes he were more like Ginny, able to accept with grace that the love of his life is only the love of his life  _ so far _ . She’s struggling, but she’s not  _ drowning _ , like Neville is sometimes.

 

      (In the future, she’ll say, often, that one day they’ll have what Draco and Harry have. Sometimes he accepts her words at face value but sometimes, usually after a particularly bitter night at the bar, he asks how she knows.

      She just sighs, and laughs, and says ‘ _ Harry and Draco… they  _ **_have_ ** _ to be happier. Because it’s what they deserve. Because it’s what  _ **_we_ ** _ deserve, because we were  _ **_so_ ** _ happy with them, and if they left us it has to be because they found something better. And if they deserve happiness, after everything they’ve done and had to do, even after we hurt them and they hurt us, then we do too. If they deserve happiness without us, fuck, don’t we deserve happiness without them? _ ’

      And she’s right. She’s always right. He always tells her as much, and she always smiles, flicks her hair to distract from the way her eyes glisten with tears, and says, ‘ _ I know _ .’)

 

      Even if it hurts to admit, Neville has _ always _ known that someone else could have made Draco happier. Because Draco and Neville  _ hurt _ each other, sometimes, in the same deep-cutting all-consuming way that they loved each other. They used to rage and scream and cry at each other, irrevocable differences clawing at the surface, trauma bubbling and just waiting to spill over, and they would  _ never _ physically harm each other but that didn’t mean their words did not  _ bite _ .

      So maybe Neville will never again love someone the way he loved Draco, but at least he knows that he will never  _ hurt _ someone the way he hurt Draco, either.

      And he’s sure that Draco’s words still bite, sometimes, but it probably doesn’t hurt Harry the way it hurt Neville. Harry has worked hard at being good at turning the other cheek, at letting a situation cool down before he goes sailing back to solve it like the hero he is. Besides, with the way Draco smiles at Harry… Neville doesn’t think Draco would ever  _ want _ to hurt Harry the way he hurt Neville.

      Sometimes, when he thinks about that, about how Draco loves Harry differently than he loved Neville, about how Neville probably wouldn’t even recognize the signs of Draco’s love anymore, he takes a twisted kind of pleasure in thinking that Draco probably doesn’t  _ need _ Harry like he needed Neville. Because Neville and Draco’s love was a  _ need _ rather than a  _ want _ , and it was  _ so _ unhealthy, but Neville can’t help but miss it so much that sometimes he can’t stop the tears for  _ hours _ .

      Sometimes, in eighth year, they used to have to skip class because they were afraid they were going to break to pieces, or shake out of their skin, and they had to hold each other close for  _ hours _ because if they did anything else, the world would end. They  _ needed _ each other to  _ survive _ , on those days, and when Neville stops to really think about it he thinks maybe that’s why Draco left. He gets it,  _ really _ , it wasn’t healthy for either of them to keep living that way, and if he had been in a better headspace maybe he would have left just like Draco did. 

      But it feels good to be needed like that, especially when you feel like you’re coming apart at the seams, and Neville hasn’t felt anything even close to that feeling since Draco packed up and left him. 

      It wasn’t  _ always _ like that though, because if it was  _ always _ like that even Neville’s barely-working eighth-year brain would have clued in to the severity of the issue. Mostly, their relationship was as normal as any relationship could be between two teenage war veterans. But sometimes, oh,  _ sometimes _ , they had wonderful,  _ tender _ times that Neville  _ still _ dreams about, and he wakes up  _ aching _ .

      He dreams of the time they called in sick to work and spent the entire day under the covers, last year, and Neville traced the upturn of Draco’s nose as he slept, memorized the way his lashes were so long and  _ so  _ blonde against his cheeks.

      He dreams it’s that one day in eighth year where Neville surprised Draco by Apparating him off campus and to the London Zoo, and they spent the entire day looking at the penguins. Draco’s cheeks and nose and  _ forehead _ had flushed a gorgeous pink from the cold, and his hands were basically blue, but he wouldn’t leave until closing time. He had laughed so much that day, eyes wide and sparkling, talking a mile a minute about the wonders of Muggle animals, and Neville’s heart had almost burst with loving him.

      But Draco looks  _ happier _ , there, in the bar, beside Harry, than he did on any normal day with Neville. And really, that’s what matters. Because if Neville loves Draco, if he ever loved Draco, he will let Draco be happier without him.

      Neville always knew that Draco would move on with someone new, someone who deserved him and the person he was trying to become. Harry seems to be that person and, honestly, Neville  _ gets it _ . Harry is one of his best friends and one of the best people he knows, bar none. He was a bit of a ponce in school, sure, but he’s grown into himself and grown into a wonderful man. It makes sense that the person he loves would move on with the best person he has ever known.

      “Yeah, I’m ready to go.” Neville finally says to Ginny as he tears his eyes away from the windows of the pub. He follows her blindly for the seven blocks it takes to get to the bar, tears that he doesn’t let fall blurring his vision. It seems like it’s going to be a night of bitter drinking for them both, where they try to drown their sorrows in other people and in alcohol, and Neville’s okay with that.

      After all, they’ve both just found out that the loves of their lives have thoroughly moved on, with  _ each other _ . Harry and Draco, in love, leaving he and Ginny behind to grieve over empty promises and broken hearts in the only ways they know how.   
  


      (But if, a couple weeks later, Neville finds himself hoping that the man he went home with last time  _ and _ the time before that is there again, he doesn’t look too closely at the feeling. When he was in Blaise’s bed he forgot everything but Blaise’s name, and right now that’s what he so desperately needs.

      He  _ pointedly _ does not look too closely at the feeling niggling in his chest - the feeling that feels an awful lot like Blaise’s strong, dark arms wrapped around him as they woke slowly, like the shy smiles they shared over morning coffee, like the morning-breath kiss they shared before Neville left Blaise’s apartment - that tells him that if he put in the effort, he could have something like what Draco and Harry seem to have.

      He doesn’t know if he’s ready to be happier, yet. And that’s okay, for now.)

 

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr at and-still-not-a-ginger.tumblr.com! current progress on fics is posted under the tag 'progress check'
> 
> I would also love to hear your prompt ideas, if you have them!


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